Conservation Through Knowledge and Awareness

The Amboseli Trust for Elephants aims to ensure the long-term conservation and welfare of Africa’s elephants in the context of human needs and pressures through scientific research, training, community outreach, public awareness and advocacy.

Note from the Director

Thank you for showing an interest and concern for elephants by opening our website. The Amboseli Trust for Elephants’ aim is to learn everything we can about these intelligent, complex and often mysterious animals while at the same time assuring that they have a peaceful and secure future.

I started the Amboseli Elephant Research Project along with my colleague Harvey Croze in 1972. We chose Amboseli because the elephants were relatively undisturbed in the sense that they were not fenced in, were still moving freely in the ecosystem, and were not being heavily poached. What we wanted was to gather base-line data on the biology of a “natural” population. Most important we wanted to study elephants by following individuals over time. More than 40 years later we are following some of the same individuals we met back in 1972 as well as all the Amboseli elephants that have been born since we started. Much of what we know today about wild African elephants is based on our study.

Join us to learn about these amazing elephants and to follow along with us as we watch their lives unfold.

Cynthia MossDirector and Founder

Articles

Using our 45 years of data, Pierre Massat from Mavtromatika designed a beautiful visualization showing the development of the Amboseli study population. Families have increased in size over time. The population as a whole has also grown, making Amboseli a unique model of a healthy population. Thanks to community support for elephants, Amboseli escaped the large scale poaching of the 1980s, 1990s. The current crisis has reduced elephant numbers by a third across the continent, and caused some populations to crash by 60%. In Amboseli, our challenges are to promote coexistence between increasing numbers of humans and elephants and keep a healthy ecosystem for all. We use our long-term data and baseline population to help inform management decisions for elephants elsewhere.

Having worked with elephants in the wild for over 4 decades, we believe ATE has a very good understanding of what is it that elephants need in order to live out their lives in a happy and humane manner. This statement highlight why we do not condone elephants being used in circuses as well as certain captive environments.

Donate

“Elephants form deep bonds with each other, which last for decades. Elephant survival is strongly affected by access to the social and ecological knowledge that older elephants hold; where to go, what to eat, how to avoid danger.”- Dr. Cynthia Moss